Ins and Outs
by Fizzing Wizard
Summary: Taichi and Koushirou crossed the boundaries of Jockville and Geekdom to strike up a most unusual friendship. That's not to say their road is always smooth. It seems to Koushirou the stronger their friendship gets, the deeper the pitfalls become. New: Ch 2
1. serendipity

**CHAPTER ONE  
_serendipity_**

In Odaiba, on sunny days, Koushirou charged his battery and took his computer to the park, where he set himself up on a bench with the computer on his lap, because it was a _laptop._

At first, he found the position awkward. The keyboard felt abnormally low resting on his legs. If he sat in the sun, the light glared on the screen, but in the shade it was too dark to see properly. Even more irksome was the cheap battery that had come with the PC, which flickered and died after less than two hours of use. Then Koushirou had to trudge all the way back to his apartment and face his mother, who was always so concerned that he got enough sunlight, as if he were a flower that would shrivel in the shade.

"Some flowers don't do well in the sun," he told her one day. "Some flowers wilt if they get too much light."

"Little boys are definitely the kind of flowers that need sunlight," she said, leaving no room for argument.

Most days, when he came in with his laptop strapped to his back and not a single grass stain on the knobs of his knees, she would heave a sigh of long-suffering and wave him off to the air-conditioned sanctity of his room. He would plug in all the cables and get the battery charging for tomorrow when his mother's resolve would return and she'd kick him outside again.

Koushirou didn't entirely understand why his mother wanted him to spend more time outside. She didn't even want him to take the computer at first, but after watching him idle outside their apartment complex kicking rocks around day after day, she finally caved. He could have the computer, but he had to be outside.

"Why does it matter? What difference does it make where I am while I'm by myself?" He wanted to ask. But he never did. He already knew what she would say.

* * *

One Sunday after one of his ventures into the great outdoors, Koushirou tried to sneak inside quietly by shuffling down the hall in his socks, never lifting a foot off the ground. It came as a surprise when his mother called out from the kitchen:

"What on earth happened to you?"

Her arms were drenched in soapy water up to the elbows. She clutched a yellow sponge in her left hand. Koushirou fixed his eyes on the sponge as he turned around with his arms clasped behind his back.

"Koushi – my goodness! You're bleeding!"

"It's nothing," he mumbled, but she had already tossed the sponge in the sink and snatched a towel. Wiping down her arms, she ushered him into the bathroom and had him sit on the toilet while she rummaged for disinfectant.

Koushirou glowed bright red up to his ears. He'd skinned his palms and his left knee. Other than that, he was just dirty. His mother cleaned his wounds and covered them tenderly with Band-Aids. Koushirou hated the Band-Aids. They had pictures of cartoon dinosaurs and round purple things that were supposed to be rocks. Band-Aids for babies.

"All better," Koushirou's mother said with a smile. His blush deepened; she even talked to him like he was a baby. "Now, tell Kaasan what happened?"

He didn't want to tell her. He bit his lip and looked at the PC balanced near the sink, hoping it wouldn't get wet. It was in its case, so it would probably be fine, but he wanted to make sure it hadn't been jostled too badly earlier…

"Koushirou. Tell Kaasan what happened."

"I fell down." That was telling her enough. He wasn't even lying. He _had_ fallen.

But she either didn't believe him, or she sensed he wasn't giving her the full story. For a moment he thought she was going to interrogate him further, but instead she stood up and started replacing the items she'd taken from the medicine cabinet.

"All right. Don't tell me if you don't want to. But I don't like that you're lying to me, Koushirou."

"I'm not lying…"

"Hiding part of the truth is deceit – that's the same thing as a lie."

He sulked on the toilet until she'd left the room. He waited there a few seconds longer until he was sure she'd returned to the kitchen to finish the dishes she'd left unwashed. Then he tucked his computer under his arm and headed to his room.

His palms stung too much to type.

* * *

The next day, Koushirou decided to look for a different spot in the park. He shot a longing look at his usual bench as he passed it, and had to remind himself firmly that inanimate objects couldn't feel emotions like hurt or betrayal. Even so, as his shadow flickered over the polished wood boards, he felt a deep pang of reproach in his chest.

He selected a plot of grass obscured by a maple tree and sat down. It had rained the night before. The seat of his pants and the bottoms of his sneakers were already smeared with mud. He carefully positioned his computer on his outstretched legs. It wobbled, but not too much, so he squinted at the screen and decided to just make the best of it.

It was September. In October, she would stop forcing him to go outside.

Twenty minutes passed, and Koushirou was deeply involved in a new bit of html code when his screen began to darken. A minute later the computer had completely shut down. Koushirou stared, horrified, and remembered how he'd forgotten to recharge the battery last night while he'd been watching _Jaws_ with his dad.

He would have cursed, if he'd known any. It was too early to go back home. His mother would only throw him out again. He had to sit in this mud with a computer that didn't work and stare at the sky for another hour at least. With a groan of unutterable distress, Koushirou collapsed on his back and clenched his eyes shut tight.

He was so engrossed in his self-pity that he didn't hear the footsteps coming up to him from behind.

"Are you cloud-watching?"

Koushirou shot up so fast that if he'd been a jet-propelled rocket, he would have been blown sky-high.

"But, I've never seen anyone do it with their eyes closed. So maybe you were sleeping?"

He scrambled to his feet, hugging his PC to his chest. He thought that if he moved backwards very slowly, maybe he could dart away without being noticed.

"So? Were you sleeping?"

It was too late – there was a face only inches from his, and wide brown eyes peering at his nose with a greedy sort of look, like he was about to bite it off. Koushirou decided then and there that he liked his nose the way it was, and he didn't want anyone to bite him.

"W-w-wasn't – sl-sl-sleep-"

The other, a boy of normal height and wearing a blue shirt, smirked at him and laughed a little. "You talk funny," he said. His hungry eyes flickered to the computer clutched protectively in Koushirou's arms. "Why do you have a computer?"

Koushirou scrapped his old plan and didn't bother hiding it as he walked backwards towards the gate. The other boy followed without ever losing his lopsided grin, as if he normally had conversations with people who were walking backwards.

"You don't say much, do you? Maybe you can't talk? But you said something before, even though I don't know what, but that means you can talk, right? So what, you just don't like to? Is that why you have a computer? So you don't need to talk to anyone?"

Koushirou thought he didn't need to talk at all since the other boy seemed able to hold an entire conversation by himself, but he didn't say so. He didn't want to get knocked down again.

"Hey, look," said the other, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back with an easy air of nonchalance, "I was trying to find you to say sorry about yesterday. You were so quiet, I didn't even see you when the ball went flying your way, and I just chased after it, you know? That's what I was supposed to do. If I hadn't, and it had gone past the plum tree, it would have been a goal for the other guys. I don't usually play defense, really. I guess I got carried away. So, I'm sorry I knocked you over like that, okay?"

Koushirou stared. The boy cocked his head, then stretched out his hand.

"I'm Yagami Taichi."

If he didn't shake his hand, Yagami-san would probably get mad and knock him over again. Koushirou stared at the dinosaur Band-Aids on his hands and knee. Yagami-san had bandages all over his legs too, and one on his forehead where he'd scraped it when the two of them had tumbled across the grass and into the fence. Koushirou noticed Yagami-san's Band-Aids didn't have cartoon dinosaurs and weird rocks on them. No, they were printed with a _Hello Kitty_ design.

Koushirou couldn't take his eyes off the smiling decapitated cat heads bouncing around in a pink sky as he pressed his hand weakly against Yagami-san's palm.

"Izumi Koushirou," he told the cat on Yagami-san's left knee.

"Nice to meet you, Koushirou! I was going to call you Tumbleweed Kid, but now that I know your name, I'll call you that, okay? Is it okay for me to call you Koushirou?"

Koushirou couldn't think of anything to say, and so he didn't say anything.

Yagami-san must have decided he meant to say "yes" and just forgot, because he said, "Then, Koushirou, want to get some ice cream with me? I owe you for running into you like that yesterday."

Wondering to where his common sense had fled, Koushirou found himself nodding.

* * *

Yagami Taichi had three Most Striking Features. Koushirou emphasized these three in particular, but there were actually many more striking things about his self-appointed new friend. He had a plethora of personality quirks that Koushirou couldn't begin to figure out, but these Three made the deepest impression on him that first day.

The first of these Three was the feature no one could help but notice about Yagami-san, even from afar: he had the most amazing, gravity-defying hair Koushirou had ever seen. He even claimed it was natural, but he might have been exaggerating. It seemed to grow straight up from his scalp and bent as if swept by a constant wind. The goggles Yagami-san always wore around his forehead might have helped support it a bit, but in the end Koushirou could only attribute Yagami-san's hair to his own innate Taichi-ness.

The second feature was his eyes. They were brown – not hazel, not brown-black – just brown, like the mud congealing around the base of a tree after the rain. But Koushirou noticed, as they sat across from each other in the ice cream parlor, both with three lavender scoops of taro root ice cream each, that Yagami-san's eyes were uniquely shaped. His lashes bristled most at the far corners, then sloped downward, giving him a slapdash look of self-confidence. Even if the shape of his eyes hadn't helped out, the way the drab mud color warmed with a roguish glimmer was enough to make him look as though nothing in the world worried him in the least.

The third and most intimidating feature was Yagami-san's smile. Koushirou was both intrigued and scared out of his wits by that smile. It was too broad, as if Yagami-san had smiled so much and so hard in his life that his mouth had stretched out too far to ever retract, and arrayed with uneven baby and grown-up teeth. And it never came off. Koushirou noticed that right way. Not a single time while they sat together in that ice cream parlor did Yagami-san's smile disappear for a even a moment. It was a Perma-Smile that promised mischief and adventure and many other frightening possibilities.

Koushirou picked at his ice cream and waited, his body on high alert in case Yagami-san decided to delve into any of these possibilities and he needed to make a quick escape. He'd already pinpointed each of the exits (sadly, there were only two) and he was hoping the sour-faced waiter with the hairy arms who had taken their order would be enough to ward off any thoughts of devilry.

Koushirou could tell. He'd only known Yagami-san a short while, but he could tell that this boy was exactly the type to cause trouble.

"Do you like this stuff?" Yagami-san said with his mouth full of purple ice cream. "It's better than vanilla, but I think I like chocolate more."

"Then why didn't you order chocolate?" Koushirou asked.

Yagami-san raised both eyebrows, which only made his grinning, confident expression seem even more daunting. "Because I'd never tried taro root ice cream before!"

"I've tried it before," Koushirou said. Taro root wasn't an uncommon flavor in Tokyo.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you lug that computer around all the time?" Yagami-san stared at his PC with those predatory eyes. Koushirou's fingers curled around it more tightly.

"I take it with me everywhere," he said. "Why are you always kicking that soccer ball around?"

"Computers are dull," Yagami-san complained. "At least playing soccer gets me moving, running around. If you don't, you get bad circulation. Hey," he said, licking the last of his ice cream off his spoon, "maybe you can learn to play on the computer while kicking a soccer ball at the same time!"

That was absurd, Koushirou thought. "No one can do that. They'd break something – either the computer or themselves," he demurred. "And I'm not _'playing'_ on the computer. I'm working on learning html code right now. It's very important for building websites."

"Oh, that's boring. I thought you were playing a MMORPG or something. Like World of Warcraft. I played that once. But there was this jerk who kept mouthing off to me, and so I was trying to get him to shut up, but my mom came in and saw what I was writing, so now I'm not allowed to use the computer for more than an hour at a time."

Koushirou was torn between horror at the thought of being unable to touch his computer for twenty-three hours at a time and curiosity about what it was Yagami-san had been typing which had so upset his mother. While he fingered the strap on his computer case, Yagami-san leaned over and stuck his spoon in Koushirou's ice cream bowl.

"Ah –" but it was too late.

"Mmm, your ice cream tastes better than mine, Koushirou."

"… Yagami-san…"

Yagami-san rolled his eyes. "Quit being so formal, will you? Yagami-san is my dad. I'm just Taichi."

Koushirou opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. "But, we've just met, Yagami-"

"So? We're friends, aren't we?" Koushirou was shocked to see Yagami-san's grin spread itself even wider. "So just Taichi is okay."

_We're friends?_ It was possible to make friends with someone in just a few minutes? He supposed the manner of their introduction had been odd. When Koushirou had friends in the past, he'd met them because they'd worked together on a school project, or they'd played together while their mothers chatted. Meeting someone after that someone bowls you into a fence probably wasn't a typical friendly greeting.

"… Okay, Taichi-san."

Taichi sighed. "Well, that's a little better." He ran his tongue along the dip of the spoon. Koushirou couldn't imagine what traces of ice cream could possibly still be left. "So, Koushirou, now that we're friends…"

"Yes, Taichi-san?"

"See, I just realized I left my wallet at home…"

* * *

A/N: Reviews much appreciated! More to come very soon.

* * *


	2. hold that thought

**CHAPTER TWOf**  
**_hold that thought..._**

"Who was it I saw you talking with this afternoon?" Koushirou's mother asked when he arrived home from school.

Koushirou slid into a chair and his mother set a plate of apple slices and carrot sticks in front of him. "It was a boy with bushy brown hair," she said, "and how he gets it to sit that way, I'll never guess."

Koushirou knew exactly who she was talking about, but he feigned indifference and bit into an apple slice. "There are lots of brown-haired guys at school. I don't know who you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." His mother looked at him with a knowing smile. "My Koushi is the brightest son any mother ever had. You were sitting outside with him when I came to bring you your lunch."

Koushirou grunted around his piece of apple and stared fixedly at a dark, spiraled notch on the wooden table. He'd hoped his mother hadn't seen him talking with Taichi-san. When he'd spotted her, Koushirou had run to the gate to take his lunch, leaving Taichi kneeling in the grass. Taichi hadn't come over, and Koushirou was grateful. He didn't want to introduce them.

It had surprised him when, as he'd wandered to his usual spot outside to mope over having forgotten his lunch, Taichi had suddenly appeared at his side and flopped down next to him. He'd tucked his arms behind his head and grinned up at Koushirou with a dazzling look of pure mischief.

"What are you up to, Taichi-san?"

"Shh," Taichi said. "You're too noisy. I'm hiding from Sora."

Koushirou wracked his brain and realized Taichi was talking about Takenouchi Sora, a red-haired, spirited girl he'd often seen Taichi playing with in the park. Taichi usually ate lunch with her and some of their soccer friends.

"You're not doing a very good job of it," Koushirou informed him. "You're a lot bigger than me, so I won't make much of a human shield."

"Yeah, but nobody's going to look for me over here." Taichi tossed his head around and, finding no sign of his redheaded pursuer, settled back complacently on his elbows.

Koushirou looked away to carefully school his expression to hide his hurt. It shouldn't have surprised him that Taichi had only come here for the safety of Koushirou's shroud of invisibility. Besides, Taichi was right – no one would ever expect to find him eating lunch with Koushirou.

He'd done some research after that day in the ice cream parlor. What he'd discovered hadn't been surprising, and yet surprised he had been. Yagami Taichi was a fourth year and a genuine playground celebrity. He was an exuberant, boisterous kid who received mediocre grades and excelled at sports. He was popular among his peers for his friendly nature and sense of humor. Most of the teachers liked him too, even though he was something of class clown. He might slack off in class, but his personality was so likable that it didn't earn him a bad reputation. Everyone was his friend, and those few exceptions weren't friends with many people anyhow.

That a person like Taichi wanted to be friends with Koushirou set off warning bells in his head. He already knew exactly how this would play out. Taichi was a user. He made friends with everyone so he could avoid consequences, and so he'd always have someone to turn to when he had a problem. But that was as far as his friendship went. It was superficial and convenient. Koushirou was just another groupie to add to his fan club.

He wasn't entirely sure why Taichi had decided to notice him so suddenly. Maybe he'd been worried Koushirou would get him in trouble for hurting him that day in the park. If so, he shouldn't have bothered – Koushirou wasn't about to tell anyone what had happened. It was embarrassing enough that Taichi recognized him from that day without everyone else finding out how he'd been caught off guard by Yagami Taichi and his wayward soccer ball.

Whatever the reason, Koushirou was sure it existed. He wasn't going to be drawn in.

"Where's your lunch?"

Koushirou snapped out of his reverie and turned to find Taichi watching him with his head tilted in that quizzical way of his. He almost shivered at the look in his eyes. Why did he always seem to be on the verge of knocking him over again?

"I forgot it," Koushirou explained. "My mom's going to bring it over soon." His brow furrowed. "What's your excuse?"

"I didn't bring one," Taichi replied.

"You… why?"

"Because I was dared to steal Sora's lunch every day for a week," he said. "It worked on Monday, and yesterday. But now she's on to me, and I only got to snatch this –"

He produced a container of pudding from his pocket. Ripping off the seal, he went on, "She started chasing me, so I ducked into the gym and hid behind a crate of basketballs. She thinks I'm inside, so I'm safe as long as I stay out here for a while. I'd go back for the rest of her lunch, but her friends are guarding it like mice with their last bit of cheese."

Taichi overcame the problem of not having a spoon by plunging his tongue into the pudding and slurping it up. He surfaced with a glob of pudding dangling from his nose like a Christmas ornament.

"Taichi-san, you shouldn't steal Sora-san's lunch. Then she won't have anything to eat."

"Aw, girls always think they're too fat anyway. She should be grateful I'm helping her stick to her diet."

Koushirou had a hard time believing Sora was on a diet. For one thing, she was an incurable tomboy, and kept a slim physique simply by playing sports all day. For another, if she had pudding in her lunch, she obviously wasn't too worried about calorie intake.

"Did you crack your code thingy yet?" Taichi asked. His impressively long tongue slipped out deftly and swiped the pudding off his nose.

Koushirou blinked. "My code thingy?"

"Yeah – that aych-tee-whatever thing you were talking about the other day."

"Ah, html code. It's not something you crack. It's like… well, it's a markup language…"

The blank stare he received in response informed him that giving any more details would be futile. Until he could think of a fitting sports metaphor, Taichi wasn't going to understand when he got caught up in techie jargon.

He sighed as Taichi rolled his tongue around the base of the plastic container. "I guess you must be pretty smart then, huh," Taichi said. "Since you know all that computer stuff and you're only a fourth year."

"I'm a third year."

"Really?" Taichi's eyebrows flew up. "You're younger than me? I know sixth years who aren't as mature than you."

Koushirou blushed and dropped his gaze to his hands. "I just know stuff about computers. It's nothing special."

"Sure it is!" Taichi exclaimed, jerking back like he'd been shocked. "I don't know anyone else who knows about aych-tee code and markup languages. Heck, I've never even heard of it."

Koushirou was saved from further embarrassment by his mother's arrival at the front gate. He scrambled to his feet and started walking even as he spoke:

"My mom's here. I'll be back after I grab my lunch."

"I'll keep the grass warm for you," Taichi said.

Koushirou returned only after his cheeks had finally stopped flaming, and found Taichi sucking air out of the empty pudding container and sticking it around his mouth. On an impulse Koushirou reached out and batted it away. The container dropped limply to the ground.

"Ha ha ha," Taichi leaned back on his arms again. "You're so uptight, Koushirou."

Koushirou gave the container a long look, then turned his attention to his lunch.

* * *

Koushirou knew his mother well enough to realize she wasn't going to let the subject of "that bushy-haired boy" drop just like that. She seemed determined that Koushirou make friends outside of the Internet, as if the people he chatted with online were nothing more than data themselves, and not really people at all. Even when his e-pal, Willis, took pity on him and mailed him a letter (all the way from Colorado, written on sky blue stationary paper and containing a stick of gum and a picture of the wheat-haired American kid himself), Koushirou's mother continued to act like her son was a friendless hermit.

"He's in the U.S.A. You can't invite him over for sleep-overs, you can't go on a camping trip with him, you can't even talk to him normally – just look at this mix of Japanese and English! How do you make any sense out of it?"

She'd shaken her head and let the letter flutter down to the table. But she'd still made him write back to say thank you for the gum, even though Koushirou told her Willis would prefer an e-mail since his parents didn't know he'd given Koushirou his address.

After learning what he could about the character of Yagami Taichi-san, Koushirou had managed to convince himself that day in the ice cream parlor would remain an isolated incident. Taichi was so absurdly popular that the idea he would want to be friends with Koushirou was laughable, and even if that weren't the case, their personalities did not match. Koushirou was the quiet type, introverted, worked best on his own, and didn't want or need much of a social life. Taichi thrived on making himself the center of attention, entertaining, trying to be everyone's best bud. Koushirou didn't think it was prejudging to assume so; anyone with eyes had only to look at Taichi's record to tell.

Besides, even if Taichi did the unthinkable and pursued a relationship with Koushirou – for more than a week until he lost interest – what would they talk about? What games would they play? Koushirou was hopeless at sports, and always the last one picked in gym class. He had a hunch that Taichi wasn't too tech-savvy either.

He'd decided it was better not to mislead his mother into thinking he'd made a friend. She'd only pity him when she found out the truth, and he couldn't bear that. He was tired of being a disappointment.

But mothers are the worst kind of schemers when it comes to their sons' social lives. Koushirou didn't know when, or how, his mom had figured out who Taichi was, but one night he was there at their doorstep, flanked on either side by his mother and his little sister (the reason for the _Hello Kitty _Band-Aids, Koushirou surmised).

"I'm so sorry Susumu couldn't come," Taichi's mother said as Yoshie led them into the family room. "A meeting came up, and I heard him mention sake…"

"It's fine, Yuuko-san." Yoshie took her coat and hung it in the closet. "As a matter of fact, my husband can't join us either, and his reason also involves co-workers and sake."

Koushirou tried to bore holes in his mother's back with his eyes, willing her to turn around so she could see just how much he liked her motherly plot. But she only waved the children off to play, and took Yagami Yuuko into the kitchen where she was putting the final touches on dinner. Koushirou could hear their soft, womanly voices fall into an easy lilt as conversation took them away.

It couldn't be helped. He looked at Taichi, who had plopped himself on the sofa and started swinging his legs back and forth, occasionally striking the bottom of the sofa with his heels. _Thump._

"I didn't know you were coming," Koushirou said.

"Neither did I," Taichi replied – _thump – _"but you know how moms are."

"Oniichan's mad because Kaasan made him take a bath and change before dinner, because he came in all sweaty from soccer practice." The little girl giggled from her cross-legged position in front of the TV and wasn't fazed by her brother's death glare in the least. Yagami Hikari was a pint-sized version of her mother, right down to the way her soft brown hair parted just so to fall into her eyes, which were prettier than her brother's – almost auburn in color, and rimmed by a thick fringe of lashes. Her smile, though much more subtle than Taichi's, still shared the same impish, slightly predatory quality.

Koushirou shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling blood build in his face. He never knew what to say in these situations. Acting as host to his guests wasn't one of his strong suits.

Meanwhile – _thump. Thump. Thump._

"Would you stop that?" Koushirou snapped.

The thumping stopped. Koushirou's cheeks reddened and he couldn't raise his eyes from the curve of his left big toe in his socks. He wondered if his mother would see through his act if he pretended to have a stomachache and needed to lie down.

A noise distracted him from plotting and he lifted his head to find Taichi had crossed the room and was rummaging through his video game collection. Taichi gave a long whistle and when he smiled at Koushirou, it was without reproach.

"Man, you have more games than I've ever seen! Assassin's Creed – Halo – hey look, he has that Harvest Moon you love, Hikari – Final Fantasy VII, Mario Kart, Virtua Fighter –"

Koushirou stopped him before he named every game on the shelf (which was actually only part of his collection, the rest was in stacks in his room). "You want… to play something?" he asked, meeting Taichi's eyes timidly and still feeling uncomfortably hot in his collared shirt.

"Yeah!" Taichi's head bobbed in an enthusiastic nod and he yanked Super Smash Bros. from the shelf. "How about this one, so Hikari can play too?"

"I want to be Pikachu," Hikari said, scooting over in her interest.

"Okay." Koushirou took the game from Taichi, who had been staring at his N64 with puzzlement (later, Koushirou learned Taichi only had Playstation at home, since his mother didn't approve of video games), and quickly set it up. He handed them each a controller and lowered himself down to the left of Taichi as if it physically pained him to do so.

Koushirou didn't play Super Smash Bros. often. He'd unlocked Ness and that had been the last time he'd played. Brawl-type games didn't provide enough of an intellectual outlet for his tastes.

It was clear Taichi didn't have the same reservations. He'd chosen Donkey Kong, and was enjoying throwing the rest of them across the screen. Hikarif's Pikachu waddled around aimlessly, occasionally trying to electrocute her brother before he picked her up and tossed her into the air. Taichi won with ease at first, until Koushirou replaced Link with Kirby and succeeded in knocking him out.

"Donkey Kong, defeated by the floating cotton candy monster!" Hikari cried with glee, as if it didn't matter that it hadn't been she who K.O.ed Taichi, as long as someone did.

Koushirou decided she was cute, but Taichi folded his arms and pouted. "Rematch!" he cried a moment later. "This time I'll trounce you!"

"You'll have to save the trouncing for later," Koushirou's mother said from the doorway with a small, amused smile on her lips. "Dinner's ready."

Three groans followed her as she returned to the kitchen. Koushirou turned off the TV and put the game back in its box. Together he and the Yagami pair filed out of the family room for a leisurely dinner.

When the time came for Taichi and his family to go home, Yuuko bent down and shook Koushirou's hand as if he were the man of the house. Hikari wrapped her arms around his neck (he bit back his irritation that a six-year-old was almost as tall as him) and kissed his cheek.

"I hope you come to visit us at our house sometime!" she chirped, and followed her mother outside.

Taichi leaned against the doorframe, looking at Koushirou with a grin like a lazy cat in a patch of sunlight. His goggles had started to slip down his forehead. Koushirou's mother brought her hands to his head and adjusted them.

"Please come over to play again sometime, okay, Taichi-kun?" she said, and patted his cheek.

Taichi nodded dreamily. To Koushirou's surprise, he suddenly made a fist and bopped Koushirou on the head. It didn't hurt at all; rather, it struck him as an oddly intimate gesture, but not one that he could figure out.

"I'm gonna stick a pin to your Kirby and watch it zoom away," Taichi announced.

Koushirou found himself grinning. "I have Melee too, you know. And a lot more games than you saw today."

"Hey, don't make me jealous, or it'll be that much rougher on you when I win next time."

_Next time._ For the first time, Koushirou let himself believe there might really be a next time.

"You're on," he said, puffing out his chest (to the amusement of Yoshie, who hadn't yet moved from the doorway). "I'm not scared of any dumb hairy ape anyway."

"I'm insulted!" Taichi gasped. "I'm not _that _hairy."

Koushirou laughed. They said good-night, and Taichi disappeared behind the closing door.

* * *

A/N: Thanks everyone who reviewed last chapter. I'm glad you're enjoying it - I thought the pace might be a bit slow. I'm a veteran Digi-fan of ten years, so you can imagine how long this idea has been fomenting. Blonde-Eko: To answer your question, I'm putting Taichi at nine-ish, Koushirou eight, for the time being. But they'll be growing up throughout the story.

Notes: I'm just about as tech-savvy as Taichi, so if I mess any computer-y stuff up, please do tell me. I think I did all right with the html code, but I can't be sure. You'll probably notice that Koushirou has a bunch of video games, including some that might not have been available when he was a kid. Please just excuse that. I really don't want to research the publication dates of video games! We can just claim it's one of those Koushirou things. :)

Please review, and the next chapter will be up asap!

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